How to Blow Dry with a Brush

A great blowout makes you look polished and put together. Many people run to a salon to achieve the look, but it is absolutely possible to do it yourself. Today I’m excited to be partnering with Pro Beauty Tools to help shed a little light on how to make blow drying your hair a little bit easier. Once you learn how to do it the right way, a great blow dry can last for days! Just follow these easy steps to pull off the look at home.

For today’s tutorial I’m using a favorite blow dryer from Pro Beauty Tools. It’s sleek design and matte rubberized finish acts as a no-slip grip so it’s easy to hold while styling my hair.It also has a high-powered air flow so blow drying my hair is super quick which also helps minimizes the time my hair is exposed to the heat resulting in less frizz and heat damage. If you’ve been looking for a great blow dryer, be sure to check out this one at your local Target! At $39, it’s a steal!

Something else I want to quickly mention is the little nozzle that I always use when blow drying my hair. This little attachment nozzle works to centralize all the air from the dryer so you’re not just blasting heat all over the hair in different directions. It also makes it easy to line up with the brush so as you pull it through small sections of hair you can more easily follow the section down to the ends. Make sure to always point it downwards at the hair which will help minimize flyaways and get a smoother finish!

Prep: Before beginning any blow dry, let the hair dry until it’s about 70-80% dry. Brushing through sopping wet hair can tangle it up causing the strands to snag and snap. I love to let mine air dry while applying my makeup but you can also flip the head upside down and blow dry the hair underneath at the roots to give the hair a big boost of volume.

Step 1 / Begin by dividing the hair into sections. I love to create a horizontal part from ear to ear and clip up the top section to make blow drying smaller sections a little easier.

If you divide off the hair and work in small sections it makes round brushing it a whole lot easier. I split mine into 3 or 4 sections working in horizontal layers. If you skip this step and try to round brush all of your hair at once it’ll take a lot longer and can cause breakage since you won’t be able to really concentrate the brush like you can with smaller sections.

Step 2 / Grab a thermal round brush and place the brush underneath sections no larger than the brush itself. I am using a 1 3/4″ round brush here but there are a lot of different brushes to help you achieve the style you like best.

If your round brush has a metal core it’ll heat up like an iron so these work really well if you have longer hair. If you have a lot of flyaways then reach for a brush with boar bristles since this provides a little more tension and also works great on coarser hair too. Grab a small or medium sized brush if you want to have a bit of curl at the ends and a larger brush can really help give you a smoother, straighter style.

Step 3 / After placing your brush under the section, pull the hair taught, and then concentrate the dryer at the root. Pull the brush through the section towards the ends, following the brush with the dryer. Always point the nozzle of the dryer downwards to help prevent frizz and flyaway.

Your ends dry the quickest so focusing on the roots and mid-length of the hair first helps achieve the style more quickly while causing the least amount of damage.

Step 4 / Once the section is dry, continue picking up small sections of hair from this bottom layer and blowing it dry.

After brushing through a section and blow drying to the ends, let the hair cool down on the brush before moving on to the next section. This small step will help the hair set so your style lasts a little bit longer.

Step 5 / Once all of the hair from the bottom layer is dried, let down a new layer of hair and repeat the same steps until all of the hair from the new layer is dry.

Step 6 / Continue bringing down small sections of hair until you’ve reached the very top section of hair.

Step 7 / When drying the very top section hair hair, divide out horizontal sections of hair placing the brush behind the strands and drying the sections upwards to create extra volume and lift at the top of the head.

I really hope you loved this tutorial and found it helpful! Let me know if you have any questions! I’m excited to hear what you think and if you have any tips or tricks that I missed. Be sure to let me know in the comments below! xo, Missy